the light
by MixItUp
Summary: Freddie Benson, now a cynical videographer, is sent to NYC to shoot the reports on a series of unusual murders. He gets a lot more than he bargained for. Carly/Freddie. Dark, with supernatural elements. Multi-chapter; COMPLETE.
1. Chapter 1

.the light.

* * *

It had been 128 since he'd stopped counting days. He'd taken down the calendar and shoved it in a drawer. Why think about her? It wouldn't help any of them.

Freddie Benson was twenty-five, and if you knew where to look, you could see in his eyes that he was not the boy he'd been. He was made of tougher stuff, now, stronger, almost wise. An old soul already. If you looked harder, you could probably see the hurt and emptiness fighting for his heart, too. But nobody looked that hard.

He'd finished college in three years and moved on with his life. This TV station job had been offered to him immediately, so he took it. There was no real passion in his shots now, just cool technicality. Cynicism pervaded his work. Pretty much right away, he'd become a traveling videographer, covering all of the tough, dangerous stories. It was the only thing he really loved, although he never let it show. He hurt too much to open himself to all of that again.

Technically, Freddie still lived in Seattle, but it wasn't home. Home was in the field, camera in hand, shooting dispassionately scenes of violence and horror. Seattle was just a place to store his stuff. So when he'd gotten the call that morning to pack up and head for the Big Apple, he wasn't put off at all. He was getting cabin fever; it'd been three whole days.

They usually sent him overseas, but apparently there was a big hullabaloo in NYC. Some serial killer or something, and everybody else was covering the war in China. "It's a pretty nasty story," his supervisor had said. "You okay with it?"

Like he hadn't seen worse. Sure, he'd only been there a couple of years, but he'd become known in the business for the brutal scenes he captured. He was even thinking about moving into the movie business and doing a documentary. "Yeah. That's fine."

"You're the best, Benson. Oh, and you'll be working with Sheila."

He hated Sheila. "Great," Freddie had replied, not bothering to sound enthusiastic.

He kept a suitcase ready, filled with clothes of every type. Jeans were still his favorite. Reliable. He didn't have to think about them. Most things he didn't like to think about. Like dating. His mother, controlling as ever, demanded during every weekly phone call why he hadn't met a nice girl yet. It was almost funny how, back in high school, she hadn't wanted him dating at all. And now she was practically losing her mind over his celibate state.

Fact was, he just didn't want to get involved with anybody. He wasn't really into the whole touchy-feely thing anymore. It had been nice while it lasted, but now he recognized care for what it was, just another way to get hurt. He knew lots of ways to get hurt; he'd made a career of it.

Freddie would take nails through his feet over love any day.

He'd had friends closer than family. Spencer, Sam, Gibby...Carly. Each of them had moved on with their lives after...well, after Carly.

See, at first, it was fine. She had decided to go to school on the east coast; they all stayed in the west. There were video calls and long visits and care packages. All good stuff. Then, in the middle of sophomore year, it all stopped.

It was a gradual thing. First, she stopped calling. When Freddie would call her, she would explain, in a distracted sort of way, that she was just _so busy_, and she was sorry but it would be fine after midterms. After finals. After summer. She was going to Italy, you know, to study abroad. (He'd hacked into the university website, but he never told her that he knew she was lying).

At first, he thought it was just him. They'd had a little romance going on, nothing too serious, so maybe she'd met someone new. That hurt. Then he found out she was treating everybody like this, even Spencer, and that was worse. By the end of sophomore year, she had deleted all of her accounts. The letters he sent to her apartment were all returned to sender. Carly was gone.

They all dealt in different ways. Spencer pretended that it was only temporary, even though they knew that was a lie. Gibby moved to Canada, something he'd apparently always wanted to do. Sam went to LA, to pursue her budding acting career. And good old Freddie Benson, the dogged nice guy, couldn't stay in one place and covered things that were often too bloody to show on network TV.

Life was funny that way.

Staying in Seattle, he did see Spencer on occasion. Spencer Shay was married now, to some dazzling woman named Anise. They seemed very happy, but they still lived at Bushwell Plaza. The upstairs bedroom remained exactly as she'd left it. Spencer was like that. Couldn't deal with the fact that she was gone, really gone, had cut them all out of her life like anesthetic surgery.

So maybe he was a little bitter. Screw it. Why shouldn't he be? They'd all broken apart, all lost themselves because of her selfishness. Freddie knew he wasn't what he should be anymore, but he couldn't bring himself to care.

After all, she didn't.

He always had to have a window seat when he flew. Helped him to pretend that he was someone else. He sat next to some middle-aged woman who smelled like smoke. Great. He was going to get lung cancer before he even reached New York. Freddie sighed and looked back at his novel. He'd taken reading back up; detective stories, mostly. This copy was weathered and missing its dustjacket, but he had bought it secondhand, after all. Unable to concentrate on the words, he ran his fingers along the pages until he got a paper cut.

"Brilliant, Benson," he muttered to himself, and stuck his finger in his mouth. The woman looked at him and huffed.

Sheila met him in the lobby. Freddie was staying on the eighth floor of the hotel. He glared at the number on his way up in the elevator. "So, did you have a good flight?" Sheila asked. Her dark eyes were shining.

He knew that she was just trying to be nice, but he wasn't really into that anymore. He shrugged. "You?" he replied, because his mother had pounded courtesy into him. Sheila smiled and nodded.

Freddie hated to look at her, because although her skin was dark and she was taller than him with heels on, when her chocolate eyes caught the light, he saw Carly.

He looked at the floor.

"I'll get that for you," he said gruffly, taking her suitcase along with his. He didn't wait to see her expression. He didn't want to see her smile.

The hotel room was okay. The bed seemed comfortable enough, so he settled onto it and tried to watch TV. Of course he couldn't concentrate. Of course. Sighing, he turned his face to the pillow. And woke up an hour later. "Jet lag. You'd think I'd be used to it by now." He stumbled to the bathroom and splashed water on his face. His hair was always messy now—absently, he thought of how upset his mother would be if she saw it. His eyes were red. Vaguely, he wondered if he'd cried in his sleep.

Freddie went down to the diner in the hotel. The girl at the counter laughed at him. If he'd been filming her, he would have used cool tones. She was hollow. Or maybe he was just projecting. "You look really sleepy."

"I am." His voice was deeper than he remembered it. He ate the seventh thing on the menu and went to bed.

At about three, Freddie looked out the window. It was a dark, starless night, but lights were on, just enough for him to see a slight figure (a woman?) shrinking against the brick wall yards below. A larger figure seemed to menace her. She screamed, and the chill raced down his body. Hands shaking, he forced the window open. "Get away from her!" he shouted. "Get..."

Instinctively, he raised a hand to his throat. No voice. He blinked and looked back out the window. The woman and the monster were both gone. He laughed. It wasn't funny, he knew that. The...the whatever-it-was had probably killed her and dragged her body away. He couldn't stop laughing, though. A strange laugh. High-pitched, like a child's. His lungs burned.

He snapped up and glanced at the clock. 5:02. He looked out the window. The city, of course. No brick walls, no women screaming. Freddie tried to steady his breathing. A nightmare? It had to have been years since he'd had a nightmare.

After half an hour, he gave up on the idea of going back to sleep and looked at the little laminated sheet. Breakfast wouldn't be served until six. Turning on the TV, he was greeted with the theme from Psycho. Averting his eyes, he switched the channel quickly. The last thing he needed was a horror movie. Somehow, everything scared him more in black and white.

Had there been colors in his nightmare?

He watched a rerun of Friends before going downstairs. Freddie gulped down his coffee with great gusto.

"Hey!"

Before he twisted around, he knew it was Sheila. "Hey," he said, trying to give her a winning grin. By the look on her face, he could guess he just looked pained.

"You okay?" Her hair was down today. It hung down her back in a single, dark sheet. Blinking rapidly, he forced his eyes to hers.

"Yeah. Didn't sleep well."

"Nightmare?" she asked sympathetically, dropping into the seat across from him.

Freddie nodded. She took his cup carefully, keeping her fingers from brushing his. "I'll get you some more crappy hotel coffee."

"Thanks."

His eyes watered. He realized that he'd been staring out the window, and quickly blinked. Sheila deposited the cup on the table, and he drank it eagerly. Even with the hot coffee running down his throat, he felt terribly cold.

"You ready to go?" she said presently, obviously itching to leave.

Freddie looked out the window. It was a pretty day. "Let me grab a jacket."

They shot the story quickly. The bodies were gruesome, he had to admit. Maybe he hadn't seen worse. The first of the three bodies had welts all over his chest, and chunks of flesh were missing, mostly along his arms. His expression was contorted—it had not been a peaceful death. The second was similar, missing an ear and covered in marks.

"There was blood all over," a voice behind him said quietly. Freddie jumped. It was the coroner; Sheila interviewed him for part of the story. "Never seen anything quite like it."

He nodded in reply. "Can I see her?" The final body was still covered by a sheet. Only the head peeked out, revealing a young woman. The coroner hesitated, then nodded.

"I wouldn't film it, if I were you."

"We have enough footage." For once, he didn't thrill at the thought of editing the story together. Freddie followed the man over to the woman's body. Slowly, the coroner pulled back the sheet.

Her neck was completely mangled. Nearly all the flesh was gone, leaving exposed the ripped veins in what used to be her throat. Only the bones were still intact. Her face was pale with death, but she seemed to be at peace. The coroner replaced the cover.

"Is it cold in here?" Freddie asked, pulling at his sleeves.

The other man laughed.

Sheila strode over to him. "Hey, are we good?"

"Yeah. We're good." The image of the dead woman floated in the air. He shuddered.

"I'm starving. You want anything?" she asked, tilting her head to the side.

Freddie shook his head. "No. I'm going to go for a walk."

She laughed. "In this neighborhood?"

He looked at her. "I'll be fine."

It was clouding over, now. He still felt cold. He hugged his arms to himself as he walked. Maybe it'd rain. At least that would justify his gloomy mood. On a whim, he turned at a shady alley. They were going to be covering this for a few days, anyway—it was a pretty big story. People are morbid, he thought. There was a cluster of people on the sidewalk. He moved to avoid them, and ended up crashing into a woman who had been running the other way.

"Sorry," he mumbled.

"I'm sorry," she said at the same time. Freddie's heart jolted. Something about her voice was so familiar. The high pitch, the sweet quality...it was a little bit more rough, but...

He grabbed her shoulders as she walked past. As if she was ashamed, she looked down. Her hair fell in her face. It didn't matter. He could recognize her anywhere.

"Carly?"

_End Notes: I have no idea how long this will be. It's sort of writing itself. Please don't overanalyze locations, etc. in this story. They're pretty much intentionally vague. I want this story to resemble a movie; thus the rapid cuts, occasionally sparse description, changes of focus, and so on. Please let me know if I am at least marginally successful._


	2. Chapter 2

.the light.

* * *

"Carly?"

Defeated, she lifted her head slowly. "Hey, Freddie."

Freddie had never seen her look worse. She was pale, almost translucent. Her hand drifted slowly up to her shoulder, and she tried ineffectually to remove his grip. She was so weak, and cold. Carly looked like a snowflake, about to melt away. He opened his mouth, but he didn't know what to say. What could he say? He wanted to yell at her for making him, them all, hurt like that, but she looked so helpless and small.

He'd given up on loving everything in his life, but he'd never quite given up on loving her.

Instead of saying words he couldn't imagine, he slowly took his hands from her shoulders. Her dark eyes widened. Deliberately, he turned, at once savoring and hating the feeling. The steps were heavy, but he was five paces away when she grabbed his arm.

"Don't leave," she said, voice barely above a whisper.

Freddie sighed and jerked his arm away. "Maybe you should listen to your own advice." The cruel words tasted bitter, but vindication swept over him. She _did_ deserve this, after all she put them through. Again she snatched at his arm. Her fingernails dug into his skin.

"Freddie, listen to me."

No. He was tired of this. He was done. If he had to drag her behind him all day, so be it. He wasn't going to listen to her excuses.

"Freddie," she said again, weakly. "I'm sorry."

She was unbelievably gray, he thought as he looked at her. Nearly monochromatic. The clouds hid the sunlight from her form; a ray or two scattered on the sidewalk reflected only more bleak color onto her skin. In contrast, her brown hair looked almost black. Her lips were dull and chapped.

And blast it all if she wasn't beautiful anyway.

"What do you want?" he asked roughly, half regretting the words and half regretting the tone.

Carly looked down at the cracked sidewalk, scuffing a single dirty sneaker against the pavement. Her pants legs were ripped, and he had a feeling it wasn't intentional. "It's not safe," she muttered, so quietly that he almost didn't hear.

Freddie felt a twinge. Why did he have to be so soft-hearted? "What do you mean?"

"It's not safe," she repeated, a little louder. Her voice cracked on the last word. "Come inside with me." She made a limp gesture to the rundown brick building behind her. Vividly, he recalled his nightmare and winced.

"Carly, it's safe out here." He was curious, now. What reasons could she possibly offer for throwing them all away like so much meaningless trash?

She shook her head vehemently. "No. It's not safe." For the first time, he noticed the slur in her words. Freddie raised an eyebrow.

"Have you been drinking?"

"Can we just go inside?" she asked in a small voice, her skin a little less gray now. The sun was peeking out, but he didn't feel any warmer.

He looked at her, wondering if she was as hollow as he felt. "Come back to the hotel with me," he said abruptly.

Carly's eyes shot back up to his. "No." Her tone was urgent. "Come with me. Please?"

"No," he returned easily. Freddie had lots of practice saying that word; it slid off his tongue quite pleasantly.

"Please?" she tried again. "For me?"

He shivered. He had expected for her to use that defense, but he hadn't anticipated his reaction. Anger, perhaps, but it was an emotion more like fear or unease that crept through him as she pronounced those words. It was like watching a reanimated corpse try to smile. The words seemed so foreign to what she was now. Or maybe he was just projecting again.

She was leaving, though, and he felt compelled to follow her steps of black and white, as painful as it was. He looked at the brick wall, trying to reach an understanding with it.

The apartment was dingy and dark. There were no curtains on the dirty blinds, nor carpet on the linoleum. In fact, the room that they entered (a kitchen/dining room/den) seemed very bare, very unlike Carly. Freddie tried not to look at her, but it was difficult. He wanted to see beneath her skin and ask this shell what she'd done to vibrant Carly Shay.

She sat down at the tiny kitchen table. He followed suit. For a long moment, all there was in the world was between their eyes, barely daring to meet. "Why are you here?" she asked suddenly.

Freddie looked away. "You invited me," he said.

"I meant...in New York."

He looked at the grimy refrigerator. No pictures there, not even schedules or cute magnets. He didn't want to talk to her about his work, like nothing had happened, like she hadn't spit them out years ago. "I know what you meant, Carly. Wh-why did you leave?" He cursed his tongue for stumbling over the last words, too painful to say.

"College," she answered snidely.

"I think I deserve an answer," he said, giving her a hard look.

"Does it really matter?" she pressed, licking her lips. "I mean...we're here together now. Everything's okay." Looking in her eyes, Freddie genuinely wanted to believe her, but he could tell that she didn't even have faith in her own words.

"Everything's not okay, Carly." Sitting there, he felt like the fly in the spiderweb. He stood up. "It's not okay," he repeated.

At the door. It was gray, like everything else in this place. His hand rested on the doorknob when he heard a choking sound. Slowly, Freddie turned, without lifting his hand. Sitting at the kitchen, looking unbelievably insignificant, was Carly, curled up and sobbing quietly. No tears; just gasps and shudders.

"What have you done to yourself?" Freddie asked, disgusted. The hairs on the back of his neck pricked. He tugged down his sleeves.

Carly looked up at him, her eyes as large and empty as the moon. "Fix me, Freddie."

He lost his thoughts. A range of inscrutable, unfamiliar emotions flooded him. Resolutely, he glared down at the filthy floor. He turned the knob. "I'll be back in an hour," he said to the hallway.

"What should I do? It's not...safe." She made another choking sound.

"Why don't you clean this place up?" There were no windows in the hallway. What he wouldn't give for a bit of sunlight. He closed the door behind him a little too loudly.

Freddie stomped through the rain, shielding the take-out box with one hand. The ragged red carpet in the hallway darkened as he dripped onto it. He pounded on the door. "It's me," he said half-heartedly.

There was a sound of scuffling and Carly opened the door. God, she was thin now. He shouldered his way past her. "I cleaned," she said helplessly as he passed. He acknowledged her with a nod and put the box on the kitchen table.

"Come on and eat," he said, absentmindedly running a hand through his wet hair.

She sat obediently. "I'm not hungry."

"I don't care what your problems are, you need to eat." Freddie served a large portion for each of them. "Can I turn the air down in here? It's freezing."

"The air conditioner is broken," Carly said, looking at her plate complacently.

He frowned at the thermostat. The numbers changed, but according to the thermometer, it was eighty-six degrees in the apartment. "You can go on and eat," he told her as he took his seat.

Her hands drifted over the plastic chop sticks, but she didn't touch them. "Can you bless it first?"

The first mouthful caught in his throat. He choked; eyes burning, he swallowed a gulp of water. "You've never wanted a blessing for the food before."

"Well, I want one now. Bless it."

She scraped the plates into the trash loudly as Freddie watched her. Who was she, he wondered quietly. Her movements were like Carly's, but she was so lifeless. Carly mumbled something.

"What?" he asked.

"I said, how long are you staying?" She didn't look at him with the moon eyes.

The floor was still gray, but more from use than from dirt. "I don't know. Until this story stops being interesting to the American public."

"What story?" The clack of chop sticks.

It was probably getting dark behind the blinds. Where had the day gone? "The one about the brutal murders."

"Oh. I haven't heard about it." Carly laughed. It was not the full sound he had loved, only a pale echo. His heart ached.

"They've been in your neighborhood. How can you not have heard about it?"

"I don't watch the news," she said shortly.

Freddie looked at the door longingly. "I should go back."

Carly set the dishes down. "To your wife?"

He laughed with disbelief. "I'm not married."

She didn't blush. "Oh. Sorry. I just figured. You were always a...romantic."

"Not anymore. I don't believe in it." He stretched. At the door, he paused. "Let me give you my number. Just in case you...need anything."

His bed was soft but unwelcoming. It was like trying to sleep in a box. Freddie felt ill-suited for it, and he kept looking at the window, even after he closed the blinds and untied the red curtains. Red like brick. He shivered again. Red like blood.

The morning took its time reaching his room, and even when the sun rose, he still saw the world in cold shades of slate. A sickly sweet smell wafted through the air, bringing back to mind the events of the previous day. "Carly," he said, pronouncing it like a judgment.

And still it was cold.

"Two more bodies," Sheila said. He had to give her that she at least tried to sound upset about the tragedy. The shooting took most of the day—they had to do a few different versions, since the station had complained about the overly graphic piece from the day before.

At lunch, Sheila confided in him, "I'm kind of worried about staying so close to the murder scenes. I know the hotel is nice, but...do you think it's safe?"

Freddie thought for a second. "No."

These bodies were even more mangled. A man and a woman, found together, the woman's legs stripped of their flesh and the man missing most of his face. To his horror, he found it difficult not to picture Carly laying there on the hard pallet. Skin as pale as death—easy enough. Her face disfigured past recognition: eyelids ripped off, strips of flesh torn, blood dried, black against white. Eyes forever watching, unable to close.

He had to see her. To make sure.

As soon as they finished shooting, he burst in the door. There she was, lying on the couch, as still as if she was dead. "Freddie!" she cried, sitting up. Her eyes gleamed, reminding him of something he couldn't place. "I didn't think you'd come."

"Neither did I," he said honestly.

A rag-doll smile broke across her face. "Are you going to fix me?"

"I think so."

For the first time in years, the clouds seemed to lift. The hotel was still cold that night, but Freddie slept so peacefully that he hardly noticed. He dreamed in technicolor, of a girl with dark eyes and red, red lips.

His phone rang during breakfast. After listening for a minute, he nodded and hung up. "He wants us off the job after today. The public seems to think this story is too depressing."

Sheila laughed dryly. "No, really? What could be depressing about horrible murders?"

He smiled tightly. "There've been five more." Hot coffee flowed down his throat, but his arm hairs still stood on end.

God, he hated this room. All clean and white, as if the bodies on the tables were only sleeping people. Their chests were nearly ripped open, and no amount of medical sanitizing could disguise the gore of their deaths. Freddie felt a strange desire to trace a finger's path along the pale white skin of one of the women; he cringed at the thought.

Off the job after today. He thought back to the expression of hope in her eyes. For the first time, she'd looked alive again, real. Warm. He was a sucker, all of his old emotions rushing back. Could he leave her?

Freddie would feel like a traitor. He knew it. If he left her like that, with whatever all her problems were: anorexia, drug addiction, alcoholism...at least some of that was going on. Maybe he wasn't rid of all of his old, favorite ideas about chivalry and romance. He had said that he would fix her.

Instead of going to her house after the shooting wrapped up, he returned to the hotel. Sat on the nice bed, considered what he was giving up. A life of technicolor exchanged for black and white.

He picked up his cell phone and squeezed his eyes shut.


	3. Chapter 3

.the light.

* * *

"You travel light," she said, in that voice softer than the snow. His heart wrenched with unwanted fondness.

Carly stood there, nearly glowing in the darkness. She watched him as he dragged his suitcase in and shoved it into the corner. The wheels squeaked on the wooden floor. "I've learned to," he said lamely, and a little too late. She didn't giggle.

For once, the dusty blinds were open. She traced her pale hand along the windowpane. Freddie watched her, unsure. It had been a long time since he'd felt this self-conscious; it had been a long time since he'd cared what anybody thought of him. "I like the rain," she told him suddenly, spinning and smiling.

"I thought you were more of a sunshine girl."

She shrugged. "People change."

It made sense. She was always cloudy now.

On an impulse, Freddie opened the fridge. He sighed. "You don't have any food."

Carly leaned over the door to peer in. "What? I have food. See?" She pointed, hand limp, at the contents.

He wasn't sure whether he should scoff, laugh, or cry. "Expired orange juice, half a jar of mayonnaise, and...Halloween candy...that's not food, Carly. And what is this?" His eyes went wide as his hands closed over a cold bottle that had been hidden behind the carton of orange juice.

She backed away. The bottle shook in his hands. "What is this?" he repeated. She gazed at the floor resolutely.

Brushing her hair out of her eyes, she mumbled, "It's just some wine."

Freddie laughed. "I knew it," he said, mostly to himself.

"What?" Carly was defensive, now. Her eyes met his, and he was surprised. It was like all her earlier softness had faded, and she was nothing but hard bone. "I'm an adult, Freddie. If I want to enjoy a little wine every now and then—"

"You think I'm not putting the pieces together?" He was shaking, honest to God shaking, by this point. The sudden influx of emotion left him weak. "You're not eating, your house is a filthy rat-hole, you're probably shooting up with something, and the only thing in your refrigerator is a half-empty wine bottle." Freddie slumped down into a chair, setting the wine bottle in front of him. "Just admit that your life is falling apart, okay? Lying isn't doing anybody any good."

She sat across from him. He barely heard her over the sound of his heart pounding, when she said, "You're right."

He massaged his temples and stood up, crossing to the trash can. She leaped up from her seat. "Wait!"

Eyes back to her. He had expected Carly to be flushed with embarrassment, but she seemed just as lifeless as ever. Her eyes were a different story. They flashed with an uncanny character. Wordlessly, he raised both the bottle and his eyebrows.

"Just...pour it out, okay?" she asked, more commanding than asking.

Keeping his eyes on her, he dumped the contents into the sink and rinsed the bottle with water. She did not look sheepish. Freddie put the wine bottle on the counter and returned to his seat. Carly just stood there, looking like he'd shot her best friend in the heart.

He couldn't sleep. Maybe it was the brick wall that he knew was outside the shaded window; maybe it was the fact that Carly seemed more like a ghost than a human. The couch was like a bed of spiders. He tried to blink them away, but the itching persisted.

Was Freddie making a mistake?

She had a black-and-white photograph framed on her wall, dusty with neglect. It showed a girl holding a light umbrella and jumping into a puddle. Her face was hidden by the umbrella, but he knew it was her. How much of her life had she forced him to miss? He clenched his fists and closed his eyes, as if she wouldn't be there. He could see her face then, but not as it was. Bright, happy, cheerful, like it would have been at the time of the photograph.

He pulled another quilt over himself. It was as cold as the grave.

Her gaze startled him out of a trembling slumber. "I'm sorry," she said softly, backing away. "I was just coming in to wake you up."

Freddie struggled to see clearly. Kaleidoscopic images floated by. "'sfine," he managed to say, squinting. His head felt like it had been cursed with the worst hangover he'd ever had, even though he hadn't had a drop of alcohol.

She touched his arm; strangely enough, he pulled away, like it was an instinct. Casting her eyes down in something like shame, she frowned.

"There were more killings," she told him, with an eerie calmness. "Right outside."

He blinked, trying to make sense of her words. To clarify, she pulled the cord to raise the gray blinds. Another apartment complex glared at them imposingly, its brick walls dull. The sun had not yet risen on the bloody corpses dangling over the balcony. Freddie tried to speak, but his lips merely moved powerlessly.

Against his wishes, his mind recorded the details as cleanly as if he were filming it. Exposed skulls. Intestines ripped out. Long ribbons of skin peeled off entirely.

He drifted back out of consciousness.

Freddie expected laughter when he woke up, but Carly was only sitting on a chair and regarding him indifferently. She was humming, some bittersweet melodious thing he'd never heard.

"What's that?" His voice was dry. He cleared his throat.

Her eyes flicked up to his. "What?" she asked softly.

It took effort to reply. "That song."

"Oh." She tucked a stray hair behind her ear. "It's...foreign. You wouldn't know it."

"How do you know it?" he asked.

She shrugged. "It was...in my family."

"Oh."

They went to the over-bright store with the dirt-edged tiles and bought the cheapest food they could find. Carly made spaghetti that night, but the twirling seemed to go on endlessly without her bringing the food to her mouth. Freddie didn't comment on this.

"Let's watch a movie," she suggested, almost enthusiastic.

He looked at her. "Okay," he said, not willing to get his hopes up. "What movie?"

Carly thought for a second. "A _horror_ movie." She was breathless in black-and-white-and-green.

"You hate horror movies," he objected.

"You don't know me," she replied.

So it was some suspenseful thing, which didn't help that constant creeping feeling under his skin and on his neck. She laughed at him when she brushed his arm and felt goosebumps. He didn't return it, just locked his eyes onto the victim on the screen.

It was a woman, in her mid-thirties, but Freddie found himself identifying with her. The look in her eyes...he had seen it recently, in the mirror. Her lips were tight, like his. Carly seemed enraptured by the movie, but occasionally he'd catch her sneaking a glance at him. It was like she was a hungry lion and he was a gazelle. He closed his eyes and remembered the scene earlier that day. How did he know they were safe, here? Even Carly, in all of her strangeness, seemed terrified from time to time.

"Are you scared?" she asked, as the woman on screen rounded a corner.

He didn't hesitate in his nod.

A small, perverse smile slipped onto her face. "So am I," she confessed, eagerly, like she was divulging a piece of juicy gossip. Her dark eyes shone. "I'm so scared, Freddie."

Her tongue treated his name the same way it always had. The music was mounting. Freddie looked at her and nudged her, regretful feelings pooling. "It'll be okay. There's nothing to be afraid of."

She laughed loudly as the woman screamed in pain and horror. "Were you always this stupid?" For a moment, she _was_ the monster, in all of his disgusting brutality. She seemed colder, otherworldly. He fought the urge to scream, to yell, to leave and never look back.

The moment passed. The woman escaped the monster. Carly watched, looking almost bored, but relatively normal. Freddie berated himself. A grown man, scared of a woman he'd once known. She wasn't psychotic.

The hungry look in her eyes remained.

"I hate the ending," she whispered, as the love interest decapitated the monster.

Freddie looked at her and saw himself in her eyes. How she must see him. His shields had come down. The cold exterior he had projected since she'd left had broken like the dawn. It was a dark dawn, though, filling his heart with night instead of day. In that moment, he felt terribly naked. Deliberately, she blinked, and slowly turned away.

"So do I," he found himself saying, entranced.

The credits played.

He'd thought it would be hard to sleep, but its lure overtook him quickly. Freddie was so tired, drained. An irrational fear crept over him as he buried himself in the covers. What if he never woke up?

Carly's voice startled him. "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever," she said, in a sing-song voice. "Its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness."

Wordlessly, he asked.

"Keats." She smoothed down the covers. "Sleep tight."

Almost against his will, his eyelids fluttered closed, and he was embraced by that warm mistress, sleep.

Freddie was in a library, a beautiful old place. It seemed safe, and he breathed like it had been years since his last. There was a book before him, a volume of Keats, and he shook with the sudden remembrance. He had read that poem before, the one that she had quoted to him. _Endymion, _who had slept trance-like because of the moon goddess.

Only one other portion of verse came to mind, and he repeated that to himself as he played his hands over the gilded volume. "I thought to leave you and deceive thee, but now of all the world I love thee best. There is not one, no, no, not one but thee..."

His voice trailed off. The book had been gold, but now it was the deepest red. He looked at his hand; it was bleeding profusely. He frowned and trembled. "It doesn't hurt," he muttered to himself, touching the wound with his other hand.

Then the pain came, and he screamed in anguish.

His eyes opened, and he almost expected to be blind to all but the fierce red that seemed to fill his being. Freddie's vision cleared, though, to reveal the dark room that was becoming his own. Nearly gasping with pain, he raised his hand. A dainty stream of blood trailed down the length of his arm. It was not nearly as gruesome as he had dreamed, but the pain was unimaginable. It was like his veins had dried and been used as kindling. Fire coursed through his body.

Blinking to clear his eyes of the tears, he squinted at the figure in the darkness. She had shrunk against the wall. Her chest heaved, and her eyes were wide. Carly gazed at him.

As he watched, she carefully raised a finger to the blood that had dripped down her chin, pushing it into her mouth and licking the digit with relish. Her eyes never left his.

Freddie's stomach could take no more. He vomited.

* * *

_End Notes: I am making a soundtrack playlist for this story, which I will make available as soon as it is finished. _


	4. Chapter 4

.the light.

* * *

Backing away, he gasped out a mantra of "oh god oh god oh god". She regarded him, eyes wide as saucers and twice as empty. Carly licked her lips, as if she thought there was some remnant, some trace of his blood that she had left behind.

With one hand, Freddie covered his arm. He bumped into the fire escape door, and tried to open it with trembling hands. He found the lock and twisted it, opening the door and fleeing onto the tiny balcony. No sunlight was yet visible; it was still the middle of the night. The pain kept him from noticing the cold. His bare feet tripped down the stairs as he caught his breath and rounded the corner.

Should he turn back? His heart was too loud for him to hear her footsteps, if she _was_ following him. He forced himself to look behind him. She wasn't coming down the steps, but she was standing at the balcony. "Come back!" she shouted. "It's not safe!"

"Safe?" he spat. "You're the one who's not safe!"

Her lips shook. "I mean it, Freddie. Come back." Carly started down the stairs, taking them two at a time. She glanced around nervously. Freddie backed up against another corner. The adrenaline had lost its power, and before he knew it, she had grabbed his arm.

Not without effort, she dragged him up the stairs. Freddie felt limp, and not only in his limbs. The wind blew.

Carly pushed him into the house and locked the door. "Don't...do that again." Standing there, against the darkness of the night, she looked like she belonged, for the first time since he'd seen her again. Her eyes were wild and dangerous; her posture suggested control.

Freddie backed himself against the wall. "What—what is wrong with you?" he got out, looking at her in barely-suspended disbelief.

Her eyes were a midsummer sunset as she replied. "Everything." Her power seemed to fade.

Cautiously, he examined his arm. The bite had broken the skin, of course, but nothing seemed to be terribly damaged. He tucked the bottom of his shirt around the wound. "You bit me."

She shrugged. "I had to."

"You had to?" he repeated incredulously, spitting the words out. With his uninjured hand, he pushed back his sweaty hair.

"Would you deny me my right to live?" she said quietly and rhythmically, eyes closed as if in ecstasy.

He set his jaw. "Carly, there are people who can help—"

"Help?" she hissed, moving toward him in a quick, liquid motion. "They can't _help_ me, and you're even more stupid than I thought you were if you believe that!"

Freddie inched away, hoping to reach the front door. He sighed. "Listen, Carls, I don't know what you're into, what kind of drug or whatever, but you do need help. You can't stay here, especially with the murders."

Carly laughed. "The murders?" she taunted, a faraway look in her eye. "How do you know I'm not the murderer, dear little Freddie?" She punctuated these last words with something like a sneer.

He looked at her. "Because you're afraid."

She looked away and seemed to deflate. Carly stumbled over to the couch. "You're right. I haven't killed any of those people."

She was so pale, so small. He almost wanted to hold her, but he found himself loath to get near her. Unsurprising, since she had hurt him. Carefully, he asked, "Why did you bite me?"

Thoughtfully, she licked her lips. "I needed it."

There was silence. Freddie shivered, and reached for the blanket that he'd thrown on the floor.

"Freddie." She pronounced his name seriously. "I need blood to survive."

"We all do," he replied shortly.

"No," she whispered. "Not like that. I need to...I'm a vampire, Freddie."

He would have laughed if he didn't believe her so much that it hurt. "So," he found himself saying, "what you're telling me is..."

"I kill people. I bite their skin and suck out their blood. I break their necks and take their essence. And I enjoy it." She gave him a weak smile at the end of this last sentence.

Freddie felt like crying. "Carly, vampires...they aren't real."

"You want me to bite you again?" Her voice was almost husky as she said this. He shook his head fervently.

He found some bandages in his suitcase and wrapped his wound quickly. When he returned, she was still sitting on the couch, staring dreamily out into the blackness. Squinting, he clicked on the small lamp, and settled on the far end of the couch. His eyes shifted toward her, but she seemed not to notice him at all.

"I didn't ask for this, you know," she said.

Freddie glared. "Yeah, well, neither did I."

The light from the lamp played over her face until her eyes were nothing but black holes. Absently, he played with the edge of his bandage. Freddie swallowed when he remembered how weak he had become. "How...did you become a vampire?" he asked, struggling to keep his voice steady.

"Oh, chatty now, are we?"

He turned to face her more fully. It was harder to find the girl she'd been in the midst of all this cold, and for a moment he genuinely believed that she was a monster.

She sighed. "I was at a party. Just broken up. Some guy was getting a little friendly, and then he...well, he bit me. I thought it was weird, but, you know, it wasn't a big deal. Backed off, went home. Then it started to happen."

"It started to happen?" he repeated.

Carly kept her gaze locked on the floor. "Stuff. People seemed...less. I became more. I started watching horror movies and stuff, and it felt good, really good. Lost my appetite. Sometimes I'd bite my own skin, just for the taste of it. I didn't know what was going on until I..." She swallowed and finally met his eyes. "Until I killed my roommate."

Unconsciously, he pulled the blanket back over his flesh.

"It wasn't a clean kill," she said thoughtfully, twisting her hands together. "Lots of blood. I didn't know what I was doing, of course. Still, it tasted so good. No kill like the first one. So sweet. There's no pleasure like it." She smiled, a slow, deep grin.

"So...so what happened?" Freddie asked. His lips trembled, but his body seemed miles away.

She shrugged. "I called the police and acted distraught, said I'd just found her body. They bought it, of course—why wouldn't they?—and I tried to move on with my life, just as a...vampire."

"Didn't you ever feel guilty?"

Seriously she considered this. "I guess the human part of me did. It gets hard to feel it, after awhile. The other kills, definitely not. I didn't know any of the people. Abby, though, yeah. A little sad...a little guilty." Her brown eyes betrayed no such emotions.

They sat in silence.

"So how did you end up...here?" Freddie gestured to the shabby apartment.

Carly almost smiled. "School and vampirism don't really mix. I started hanging out at the vampire clubs and stuff...yeah, they have those." He tried to remove the expression of disbelief from his face. "I dropped out of school when I realized that I really didn't have a chance at a normal life, since I couldn't go out in the sunlight."

"I can't believe you've killed all those people," he murmured, staring at his hands. Her earlier words seemed like a cruel lie in this new light. How coolly she had spoken of murdering her roommate. It was enough to make a sane man want to run for the hills.

"I did what I had to do," she said coldly.

He twisted to face her. "Carly, those...those weren't food kills. That level of...of sadism...those were pure pleasure. I just...I can't even wrap my mind around you doing that."

Perhaps if she had looked less like porcelain to begin with, he would have been able to discern her paling. "You mean the recent kills. The gory ones."

"Yeah."

"That's not me," she whispered.

"So it's some other vampire." Freddie shrugged. "You're all demons, anyway."

She drew away. "It's not a vampire. I...I don't know what it is."

"How do you know it's not a vampire?" he challenged.

Carly's eyes flashed. Her dark hair fell in a sheet as she pushed it back over her shoulders. "It's been killing our kind. No vampire ever slays another. It's a sacred rule, unbreakable for us. We can't do it."

"It's killed vampires?"

She looked at the window, as if the monster would be summoned by mentioning it. "Yes."

Freddie went back to sleep. There was nothing else that he could do.

The morning came, with sunlight he would not see. His arm stung a little less. He ate cold cereal and wondered about the taste of his blood. Carly stayed in her room for most of the day, and she looked almost apologetic whenever she did resurface from her private world.

The news headers screamed at him. There were other stories than the bloody murders, but he stared blankly at the photograph of the bodies hanging over the balcony. Wondered how much longer the photographer would be alive. Why did all the news sites insist on using red in their color scheme? Almost instinctively, his hand drifted over the wound again. It tingled, not unpleasantly.

He had a thought that plunged the world back into grey.

The killer was not a vampire, if Carly spoke the truth, and why would she lie? She'd spared his life. Unless there was a greater plan he couldn't see...he would have to trust her word for now. The killer was not a vampire, and destroyed humans and vampires. That was why Carly was fearful and weak. She was starving. She was _dying._

Freddie had been right in a way, all along.

It was evening. He didn't knock. "You're dying?"

Listlessly, she nodded.

"How close were you before you drank my blood?" he asked breathlessly.

Her eyes lidded lazily. "A week, maybe," she said softly.

He clenched his fists. "And now?"

She rolled over onto her stomach. Against the white sheets, her black-clothed figure became even more startlingly slim. An inexplicable feeling of guilt stole over him. "Maybe two."

"We have to get you out of here," he said, almost to himself. His mind buzzed with ideas, and a faraway look filled his brown eyes. The years of carefully structured cynicism fell away. Freddie seemed the young idealistic boy he'd been.

Carly sat up and scoffed. "You want to save me?"

He blinked at her. "Yeah."

Her mouth fell open, delicately. "Freddie," she said deliberately. "I am a vampire. I find men like you and I deceive them so that I can rip their throats with my teeth. Destroying humanity is how I live. Why would you want to save me?"

"You're Carly." He wanted to take back the words, but they were true. His heart was there.

She stared at him, for a long moment that was drenched in potential. "You are the easiest prey I've ever met," she replied finally, "but I guess it's good for you that you have some kind of sick vampire fetish."

"Why would it be good for me?" he asked, brow furrowing as he tried to hide from his mind what his heart already knew.

"Because you're becoming one."

Wordlessly, he shut her door. Freddie closed his eyes, flooded by a wave of nausea, and collapsed onto the couch. He squinted at the ceiling. The cheery yellow seemed unsuited to the sickeningly appealing thoughts in his mind. Was it beginning so soon, the change? Carly had spoken of it as if it was gradual, but he found that he was already less disgusted by the thought of drinking blood.

Or maybe he was just a sick human being. Always had to consider that.

He held his hands in view, gazing at them. Studying how the veins cut through, carrying the precious life-blood. It was mesmerizing, this singular proof of his present humanity. How much longer would he be able to have this?

To that symbol, he gave a bittersweet smile. "I guess I wasn't doing much with my soul anyway." And he slept.


	5. Chapter 5

.the light.

* * *

_He lets it go, sliding his tongue over extended teeth. Soft flesh yields to his cold strength. Freddie gasps as the warm liquid pours into his mouth, filling his body with warmth. As he drinks, he feels life spread over him, and nearly trembles with the ecstasy. Laying the body down gently, he swipes his tongue across the neck one final time before leaping into the night._

Freddie awoke slowly, with a sated grin on his face. Sleepily, he raised his hand to examine the blood still flowing within. Human. He smiled, a genuine expression, before rising to greet the day that was greeting him in tones of red and blue. Or so it seemed from the other side of the curtains, anyway.

"Coffee?" he asked Carly in a conversational tone when she joined him. He smirked at his own bitter sarcasm.

She glared at him and pulled her legs up onto the chair.

"I'm sorry."

The words were so quiet that he almost didn't hear her. His eyes met hers for a long moment.

"Well, who doesn't want to be a vampire these days," Freddie said darkly. Carly nearly trembled.

She bit her lip, hard enough that blood would have come out—had she any left. "I don't know if you'll even turn into one of us, I barely got a bite in at all."

His skin pricked at her words—"one of us"—and he opened his mouth, but the words refused to leave his mouth. Her eyes looked so innocent, so optimistic, that even though he knew what she claimed to be capable of...he couldn't destroy her illusions. Freddie cursed inwardly and turned away.

How strange, that he had fully accepted her vampiric nature, and yet he was still drawn to her. Her lips, though pale, entranced him, and her dark eyes were like a visual symphony. He wondered if she was even still capable of love, of caring for another, especially a human. The notion seemed doubtful, but the sweet expression on her face took away any darkness about his thoughts.

"Let's go to a movie," he said abruptly.

Carly looked at him. "It's dangerous," she reminded him softly, shaking her head, dark locks tumbling over her blouse of cream. "For both of us."

"I don't care." The words were sharp.

She sent him a cold look. "I don't care if you have a death wish, Freddie, I'm staying here. Or didn't you read the news this morning? Ten more deaths. The monster, whatever it is, it's getting hungrier. Unsatisfied. Two of the bodies were 'entirely drained of blood', according to the news report. Vampires. I don't know how or why, but it...it wants us."

Freddie bit back the retort dying to screech its way from his lips. He wasn't part of that "us"; he was human yet. His eyes averted to the curtained window. "It's not like you're living, anyway. You sit in here every damned day."

Carly laughed; it was no happy sound.

"Damned," she repeated thoughtfully, in a childish sing-song. She shifted her weight, linking her hands around her jean-clad legs. "Damned. You always know what to say, don't you, Freddie?"

"That's not what I meant."

The sunlight must be lovely, he thought wistfully.

"I don't care what you meant." Her tone was short, and her eyes were fixed on the photograph on the wall. He wanted to touch her skin, just to prove that she was real at that moment. The vampire, the girl, both seemed part of a fanciful dream. She was hardly-there, like a dying breath or a disappearing dream."I don't care what you meant by your _damned_ words."

He sighed. "Just forget it."

"No!" Her eyes were shining, now, but he felt like she only did this to mock him. "No, let's go. Let's go to a movie."

They carried a black umbrella. He looked at her under the sun, in her leather jacket and dark jeans, still looking feminine and dainty like a pressed flower. Carly's eyes were narrowed, and her nose flared as they walked. Her eyes followed people as they walked past. Hunger.

In the subway, he took her hand. It was cold, but not as much as he might have expected. Of course, the venom was her new lifeblood. She gave him a penetrating glance at his action; he ignored her.

At least, he thought, she made it into the theater without arousing suspicion. "Just one," she whispered as they settled into the cushioned seats.

Freddie didn't look at her. He expected his stomach to turn. "Fine."

He wondered when this numbness had settled in. When he'd come to New York? When she'd left him? Perhaps it was earlier. Perhaps meeting her for the first time, all those years ago...perhaps that was when she had sucked out his life. He didn't care about anyone, about anything, but he cared about her. He loved her, somehow, and he'd kept loving her all this time, through the mist and the fire.

"I am one sick human being," he muttered to himself, as the previews flashed on. Freddie tapped his finger against his face and waited for the seconds to pass.

He felt Carly's cool presence beside him once more, a minute or so into the title sequence. Her energy was palpable; like the sun, she radiated pure light.

"Did I miss anything?" she asked, tickling his ear with her breath.

She was so close to his skin. Doubtless she was thinking about the taste of his blood, but he found himself preoccupied with the notion of those soft, curved lips resting on him again. "No," he told her. She squeezed his arm and gave him a gleeful look.

He was wrapped up in the movie when it happened: a woman screamed, loud and high. As one, Freddie and Carly twisted to see. A dark shape moved across the seats, illumined only by the rare shocks of light from the screen.

Carly gripped his arm tightly. Had she been human, he might have felt her warmth through his jacket. "We have to leave," she said urgently. The film flashed in her eyes, but he was frozen. Fear kept him locked to the seat, and his throat glued shut.

Her fumbling fingers wrenched him out of the theater seat, and before he was aware, they were running. More screams sounded behind them, and he heard the stampede of people. His vision was a blur: red and gold and what might have been the freckly usher staring at them in disbelief. They pushed through the exit doors and through the crowds. Freddie's heart pounded, another vivid reminder of his humanity.

"Yeah," Carly muttered to him as their feet clattered over the sidewalk. "It's definitely after us."

He nodded mutely, not trusting his own words.

By what he didn't want to describe as a miracle, they were soon twisting the key into the lock and tumbling into Carly's apartment. Freddie wheezed. Carly seemed barely fazed physically, but immediately raced to the door, locked it, and began checking the windows. Her slight figure seemed hardly there as she flitted from place to place. Freddie settled into a chair and tried not to shake.

When she had done all that she could, the flame seemed to go out of her. Lost, she wandered over to the couch and collapsed. For a minute, he thought she would cry. "And now you see," she said, hiccuping slightly on the last word.

Freddie furrowed his brow. "What?"

"Why we can't leave." Carly twisted her hands together. Gone was the awe-inspiring vampire that (he was ashamed to admit) scared and exhilarated him; she seemed again to be an empty shell, a shadow.

He set his jaw. "There's no need to be defeatist," he said, feeling hypocritical as the words left his mouth. As if he wasn't sure that he was never taking another step outside this forsaken apartment.

She forced a smile to her face, but her eyes betrayed her emotion. "Oh yeah. At least I fed. To die another day."

"That's all any of us do, Carly." He looked away.

Carly laughed; or rather, the thing that was in her body laughed. Even at her worst, she'd seemed to retain a remnant of her sweet girl-next-door air, but this sound was not only cruel, but inhuman. "You know what I fed on, Freddie? Know what I ate?"

Freddie glared. "Yes. People. I think we've been over this."

"Doesn't that bother you?"

He shrugged. "They probably had it coming," he muttered.

She giggled. "This one might have. She was a little bit naughty. Of course, what four-year-old isn't?"

He stared at his veins and wished her words would bother him a little bit more.

Freddie woke up with a strange feeling, as if his skin had turned to plastic. He stumbled into the kitchen, running his hands over the mostly empty cabinets. The few food items there seemed unappetizing. Absently, he touched his face to feel alien fingertips, and yet he didn't shiver.

Against his will, his eyes were drawn to his exposed arms. He felt warm, for once, but goosebumps dotted the skin. He could see his veins and arteries straining as he twisted his arm, resting his wrist upon his forehead. His lips brushed the flesh, and he contemplated how easy it would be to tear it himself. Somebody else would, sooner or later, anyway, whether it was Carly or the other monster.

He might as well...

"No!"

The hard floor held him up. Dazed, his eyes searched for hers. Carly stood above him, arms still held out from pushing him to the ground. He coughed. "No," she repeated. "Don't be an idiot."

"An idiot?" he repeated, incredulous. Freddie lifted himself back up, only to find his legs had weakened. Quickly, he made his way back to the couch. She followed him, eyes burning.

"Yeah, an idiot. You were giving in to the impulse. You were going to feed on _yourself_." She said this very slowly, as if trying to impress upon him the significance of her words.

His lips curled back; he felt like retching."If I'm going to die, I might as well pick the time."

"Don't say that." Carly marched over to the window, and, in a sweeping gesture, opened the curtains. Sunlight streamed in, and she seemed to dance in it, so much was her joy. Her pale hands reached up to the ceiling as an unconscious smile took over her face. He had never found much use for the world _revel_, but it had new meaning for him now.

He watched as she began to burn, smoke emanating from her skin. A moan escaped her open lips as bits of her flesh reddened and cracked.

Deliberately, she raised a single, exposed leg and let it bathe in the scorching heat. It filled the room with a sickening scent.

Then she turned her eyes to him, giving him a cheeky smile. His lips parted.

A firework set itself off in his chest and he was running to the burning vampire, tackling her to the floor, and closing the curtains so violently that they nearly ripped. His hands trembled.

"Are you out of your mind?" he asked furiously as he backed away. She seemed content to sit on the floor, regarding him curiously.

Her eyes were as alive as the sunlight had been. "So you do believe."

"I don't believe anything." The lie tasted good.

"Yes, you do," she insisted calmly. Carly crossed her legs and stretched. "You believe that I can be saved."

Freddie was convicted by his own silence.


	6. Chapter 6

.the light.

* * *

Freddie blinked away the dried tears and sat up. Morning's children had slipped into the house as he slept, dotting the floor with patches of brightness. Possessed by a sudden desire, he rose and followed the specks of sunlight to the window. After a quick glance, he allowed light to flow through the curtains, bathing his arms in the warmth.

He did not burn. Not today. Not yet, anyway. The heat felt nearly scorching, but his pale skin did not smoke. Silent relief coursed through his body at this proof.

Hurriedly, he closed the curtains at the sound of footsteps. Carly appeared in the doorway, hair mussed and eyes slightly open. He froze at the sight of her. The words choked up inside his throat, but the will to say them was lacking. The time had not yet come.

She smiled, though, and, humming quietly to herself, walked back to her room.

* * *

_The night before. ._ .

"I'm cold," he said, abstractly tracing a pattern on one arm. "I guess I should get used to it."

Carly smiled weakly. "I guess..."

She was as pale as the moon, and, he thought, at least as bright. Freddie wanted so desperately to feel the pain wrench through him, to miss her, to miss what they could have been, to hate that he loved her—but he felt none of it. He felt nothing.

He realized he'd spoken this part aloud when she laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. No chills followed this action; another symptom of humanity gone. A coffin would be glad to have him shortly. "Becoming a vampire doesn't mean you lose all of who you are, Freddie. I know it's pretty bad, but..."

Her words failed to calm him, and he sighed heavily. Pain and disgust would be better than this numbness, he decided bitterly. Freddie considered asking her if she'd gone through this same experience, but he couldn't bear to do that. Carly's eyes were so full of feeling, so _human_, just then. How could she be more real and alive than he? What cruel sort of trick was fate playing on him?

"I found out what it is, you know."

Opening the eyes he had not realized had been closed, he looked at her. Her lips were trembling slightly as she ran an anxious hand through her hair.

"What?" he asked, knowing full well. Unconsciously, his hands clenched, digging fingernails into cold flesh—another thing he barely felt.

"The killer." Her voice was soft, almost caressing, though her eyes were dark with fear and pain. "I looked it up. Took me awhile, but..._Strix reptilis_. The reptile vampire." Carly looked at her hands as she pronounced this.

Briefly, he wondered if the cliché about "blood running cold" could be a reality. Freddie felt certain that if he had opened his mouth to breathe, he would have exhaled pure ice. "The reptile vampire," he repeated slowly. The images that rushed through his brain were at once ludicrous and terrifying.

She gave a single nod. "They're...incredibly rare. And vicious. Very, um, brutal in the way they destroy their victims. They're the only cannibalistic vampires."

"Why does it eat vampires?"

A shrug. "Nobody knows," she said sadly. "It seems like just for the sake of killing them. They don't have real blood, just venom, so they wouldn't have any benefits. They can blend in perfectly with humans...except for their teeth, and they've been known to withstand sunlight for hours on end."

"Oh, God," Freddie breathed, sitting further back onto the couch.

On the other side of his closed eyelids, Carly murmured, "Yeah, this probably is a good time to pray."

He was honestly unsure if she was joking.

"We have to kill it," he said. The coldness seemed welcoming now, in the face of this. He was ready to lose his humanity if he could lose this fear along with it. Unwanted visions of the murdered slipped into his mind's eye, taunting him.

She shook her head fervently and pulled away from him. Reaching her hands to his face, she touched him gently. He was somewhat pleased to discover that his instinct was no longer to pull away. "We can't, Freddie. You have to accept that."

Unafraid, he stared back into her eyes, eyes that were still so human. "Why not? There...there are two of us. Two vampires against one. At least we could maim it or-or something. Yeah?"

"It killed Patricia." She swallowed.

"Patricia?" He drew back, searching her eyes for an explanation.

Carly bit her lip and ran her tongue along her teeth. "My first roommate. After I became a vampire, I mean. She kind of took me in, even though she wasn't the one who changed me. She was old—at least a hundred. She looked twenty, though. She was so powerful and just incredible, but one night she went out to feed and never came back. I saw her on the news the next day and...well, I stopped going outside."

Freddie found himself shaking, and it took a second for him to realize that he was silently sobbing. "Freddie," the girl—the woman—the _vampire_ in front of him said, with compassion. "It's okay."

"I—I don't care. You tell me I'm going to die, and I don't even care!" Had he been more conscious, he would have known that his eyes were wild as he looked at her. The terrible void seemed to grow. It was as if he was screaming from the other side of a chasm that only grew wider and wider, hope becoming dimmer and dimmer.

Something like understanding glinted golden in her eyes. "It's okay, Freddie," she repeated, reaching for him again. He didn't see it coming until, in a shower of sparks, Carly pressed her lips to his.

Before he had a chance to react, she pulled away. "Did you feel anything?" she whispered urgently, hands still wrapped around his neck. He looked at her, and she was in technicolor—yet he was still painted in gray. Wordlessly, he told her.

She took hold of his lips again. Freddie felt his body tingle distantly. Something that might have been love or desire leaped in his chest, but it was hard to feel through the walls of stone. Losing breath, he gasped, and they broke apart.

There was no doubt in his mind that Carly did not share his numbness. She looked shell-shocked but brilliant, a million colors for the first time since that last goodbye in Seattle. She was the rainbow, and it seemed inevitable that he would become filled up with her.

He didn't know it, but he smiled.

A kind of tenderness, though unlike anything he'd felt before, spread through him. Freddie tangled a hand in her dark hair, marveling at the contrast. Her emotion was like secondhand smoke to him, but he inhaled her nicotine with vigor. After all, he was too poor to buy any of his own.

Deep inside, he knew that she would not kiss him again. It was in the demure way she avoided his glance—she thought that she had overstepped her boundaries. His heart pounded and sang, dying to tell her that he had no limits as far as she was concerned. The deadened feeling lingered, but it was pushed beneath feelings that he had never managed to forget.

How she always managed to find him in the midst of anything. It was like a miracle, he thought. It was time that he found her.

Gently, carefully, he leaned in, as their borrowed time fell through the hourglass. Carly tilted her head up to meet him, and he kissed her, with a sort of delicacy he had never known. Imaginary warmth flooded his chest as the cold skin of her cheek brushed his. He breathed out what he had been holding in for years.

It was a minute before they broke apart. She shifted position, to rest her body against his, and suddenly she seemed very old and tired. Her head nodded against his shoulder, burying it in the cotton that clothed him. Freddie took a deep breath and threaded their fingers together. Nearly the same tone.

The words pressed against his lips until he was forced to let them tumble out. "Isn't there any way to stop this?"

Carly did not ask what he meant. "The only way to reverse a transformation is for the vampire to drink her own blood from when she was human."

Freddie knew he should fall silent, that she didn't want to talk about it, but his curiosity was too strong. "Why does your heart still beat?" he asked quietly.

She didn't look up at him. "To pump the venom. The circulation keeps us alive, in a way, but since it's clear, well...I look like this." Carly raised her free pale hand in the air, as if seeing it for the first time. With his other hand, not much darker, he took it and brought her icy fingers to his lips.

"It's okay, isn't it?" she whispered, breath catching on the last words.

He shook his head, feeling the truth as he spoke it. "No, it isn't. But at least we're together."

Carly's only response to this was to squeeze his hand more tightly.

Freddie had nearly fallen asleep when he felt her move from his side. A confused mutter escaped his lips, and he tried to pull her back down.

"I'm sorry," she said in an urgent whisper. "But I can't take your last bit."

"Bit?" He blinked and sat all the way up, rubbing his face. "What—"

Carly gestured to him. "You're not a vampire yet, Freddie. I-I can't take the temptation. If I bit you now, you might just...die."

Her surprisingly blunt answer left him silent for a second. "It might be better that way," he said finally. She looked like an angel in the night, wrapped in the white blanket, hair curling over her covered shoulders. "At least you could live a little longer."

She didn't smile, but simply turned around to retreat. "Good night, Freddie."

* * *

Again he looked at the sunny window, eyes trailing back to his own white flesh. "Today," he said, and he shivered in terrified anticipation.

Today, Freddie Benson would die.

* * *

_End Notes: The soundtrack is now available on my tumblr. The link to it may be found on my FFN profile. I encourage you to check it out if you enjoy this story. It's simply a compilation of songs that have inspired this story, and that I find to describe the plot and tone well._

_The Latin is most likely inaccurate, by the way. I hope that does not disrupt the story. The next chapter shall be the last._


	7. Chapter 7

.the light.

* * *

He swore his bones were trembling. It was past noon; things to come were also soon to come. Carly looked at him, more grave in that moment than he had ever seen her. Her fingers curled over into her fist. "It's outside."

"It knows," Freddie answered simply, his certainty absolute.

She squeezed his hand; he hadn't even noticed that she was holding it. He caught the look on her face and remembered her own fear. Gingerly, he slipped a comforting arm around her, leaning in against her as he stood. He needed her balance then, more than ever.

"Till the end," he said in response to her unanswered question. Carly sighed down her head against his.

He had reached the point of no hunger—no hunger that could be filled. The blood-thirst would move him entirely before nightfall. Control would not be an option; like it or not, he would be forced to leave the apartment.

Carly had told him this, and he felt his heart echoing her truth. She was weak, too, although he could tell that she hated to show it. They would fall together, as maybe it was meant to be all along. So long separated, it seemed fitting that they should come together again in the instants before their deaths. The thought was not as unpleasant as it could have been, he realized.

Suddenly, he felt her moving away from him. She began walking slowly, with unsure steps, to her room. Freddie took the seat next to hers and waited. When she re-emerged, she was carrying a stack of vinyl records, a single CD balanced precariously on top. He rose and reached out to help her, but she shook her head vigorously at this attempt.

Not without some difficulty, she eventually managed to set down the albums and place one on the stereo set. He watched her, feeling the darkness in his own eyes. The needle dropped into the groove, and Carly glided over to him.

Her blouse was pale green, like the first daring sprout of spring. She seemed both so young and so old in that moment, youthful hands swinging and pale lips beckoning, but with eyes made of millennia. "Dance with me," she sang, offering him her hands.

Freddie almost wanted to scream at her, to remind her with all the passion his heart could fit that _this was not a game_, that death surely awaited them, that his last seconds of humanity could be slipping from him. Yet the words did not come. Looking into those eyes...he could do nothing to hurt her. Perhaps a smile crossed his face as he took her hands and joined her in the dance. What could be a better way to while away his last hours?

They only broke apart for frequent changes of music. Carly lit up every time another old song bloomed its melody into that living room. Between twirls and soft, soft waltzes, she explained briefly to him about how she had gotten into older music in college. "It's a good thing, I guess," she said quietly. "Later, I had something to discuss with...well, with some of the other ones. They grew up with this stuff."

Finally, when reason dictated that he ought to be tired (although his feet felt much less sore than his heart), she reached for the lone CD.

"What is it?" he asked curiously, struggling to make out the title.

Carly only gave him a mysterious smile that barely reached her eyes. "You'll see."

As the first notes wafted into the room, he wondered why the melody seemed so familiar. It was a lifetime ago, but the memory rushed into him as soon as she fell back into his arms. "Had you forgotten?" she asked, fingers playing over the back of his neck. He shivered, although not because of her cold flesh. They were nearly the same temperature now, anyway.

Freddie shook his head. "I could never forget. I haven't heard this song since that night, actually." Her slight frame seemed so delicate under his hands, although he knew she was stronger than he would ever know. He felt his mouth twist up into a smile, completely against his will.

Carly looked at the ground. "I bought this album two weeks after I moved away from Seattle," she confessed. "I'm sorry that I never told you how much I missed you."

"I'm sorry that I was so angry with you," he said, allowing one hand to drift up and tuck a curly strand behind her ear.

"I never wanted things to end up like this," she sighed, voice cracking. "This...this isn't right. I shouldn't have...anything. All of this is my fault. Freddie—"

His eyes bored into her. "Don't. Don't apologize."

She offered him a half-smile. "Because you were meant for me," she sang softly.

His breath caught.

All too soon, the song ended, drifting off and leaving them behind, where they stayed frozen. Her body was pressed closely against his, more for comfort than from passion. Absently, he stroked her hair, letting the waves flow underneath his hand.

In the distance, a cathedral clock struck. A sudden chill gripped his body and Freddie pulled away from her. "I think it's almost time to turn into a pumpkin," he muttered, more to himself than to Carly. Frantically, he searched for something to do, to erase the thought that refused to stop creeping through his nearly invisible veins. He snatched the CD out of the player and pushed it into the jewel case. His finger slipped.

Freddie swore quietly and lifted the digit. He had forgotten about the paper cut he had given himself on the airplane; that Freddie seemed like a different person entirely. With his other thumb and index, he squeezed, waiting for the familiar drop of blood. He felt Carly's eyes locked onto him as a speck of red appeared, growing larger until it covered the tiny wound. A full, single drop.

"Freddie," she whispered. He cut her off, raising his hand. It was upon him.

Another chill seized his body, and a lightning flash of excruciating pain whipped through his body. It was as if he had become a thunderstorm, and this was the eye. The torment was so great that it nearly became pleasure. He gasped, trying to clear his buzzing brain of the deafening silence.

A fire tickled his toes, spreading through his body. When it reached his heart, he clenched his fists, letting his fingernails dig into the skin. It was all he could do to stop from screaming. Something was touching him, presumably Carly; she was trying to comfort him. With a final shock, the fire reached his brain and blackness replaced his vision.

He felt nothing, heard nothing, saw nothing, was nothing. Silently, he screamed.

Yet in a second all was clear. The darkness faded; the sound returned. It was as if the world had become sharper, more real. Everything stood out; everything was alive. The wave of thirst, that had been growing in the back of his mind, finally overtook him and he almost cried for the taste.

Time was immaterial. The ordeal could have taken seconds or weeks. It did not matter. He had become one with the ancient tradition, one with the dark immortal spirit. When he glanced to the curtained window, he was almost surprised that it was still day. Perhaps a hundred years had passed.

"Freddie," Carly said again, and he snapped to attention. Her beauty seemed to have increased with the clarity of his sight. Her brown eyes were watching him with concern, and some other emotion he couldn't quite place. "Your finger."

He frowned at her and glanced down. The prick of blood glared up at him, surrounded by blinding white. His mouth opened unconsciously. The pounding of his heart, started again, threatened to overwhelm everything. "My blood," he said, dreamily.

"You can be saved." Her voice was full of excitement and despair; he heard them both. "Just...drink that, and it'll all be okay. You'll be human again, and...you can leave. It wants me, and it only wants you if you're...still a vampire."

Freddie gazed at the red dot. Amazing, he thought, how such a little thing could be such a powerful deciding factor. He had been committed to death, and here was life.

Life, in the shape of betrayal. In denying what his only real life had been. In losing what was most important to him. In losing the person who had given him back his humanity.

The blood danced before him, taunting him and weakening him. The lust was already powerful, bending his will. He could not last much longer without taking action. The blood-madness was descending. Abruptly, he raised his finger.

Carly's eyes were full of tears, though whether of pain for herself or joy for him, he could not tell.

Deliberately, Freddie lowered his hand and pushed the tip of his finger into her mouth. Instinctively, her tongue darted out and licked the last drop. Her eyes widened when she realized what she had done, and she backed away, so quickly that she collided with the wall.

Clinging to the wall as if it was her last hope, she gasped out "How—why—_no,_ Freddie, you could have—"

"Not without you," he said. A feeling of certainty flooded him. He looked at her, seriously, really seeing her for the first time since the transformation. "I can't leave you."

Her arms wrapped around him, before he knew to expect it. Carly leaned back and then forward again, to take a chaste kiss from his lips. She was crying against his face; he said nothing, but simply held her. Their hearts pumped venom in harmonized rhythm.

After an indeterminate amount of time, they broke the embrace. Her brown eyes did not lose his, which he imagined were thirst-tainted and dark. "It is time, isn't it?" she asked, voice colored with nostalgia. She did not cry. The time for tears was past.

Freddie nodded. "Yeah. It is."

Carly glanced around, bidding farewell to her home for the last time. She closed her eyes, and he saw her lips trembling. "Okay."

Her hand found his, or perhaps vice versa. Their fingers interlocked, twisting into an icy knot. Neither pulled the other forward; they walked as one, toward the back door. Freddie threw open the curtain on the window as they passed, revealing a glorious sunset. It bled over the sky in magnificent shades of pink, orange, and red. Carly laughed joyfully as she flung the door open.

They shared one last smile before they walked off together, into

.the light.


End file.
